Colonial Governors
1656 – 1661
By José García
This is the fourth article in an ongoing series
devoted to the colonial governors of New Mexico.
ew Mexico’s governors were
normally appointed by the viceroy
in Mexico, who represented the
Spanish king. These appointments
were made after consultation with other
officials in Mexico City. The governors in this
article were appointed by different viceroys
and served under King Felipe IV during the
period from 1656 to 1661. The term of an
appointment was for three to four years in
most cases, although some served longer and a
few were appointed more than once. Some
served with honorable distinction while others
did not. Among them were military men and
career bureaucrats. In most cases they were
dispatched out of Mexico City and returned
when their successor arrived in Santa Fe.
N
Juan Manso de Contreras, 1656–1659
Sometime in the late 1640s or early 1650s, an
unusual meeting took place in New Mexico.
Present were Juan Manso; his older half-brother,
Fray Tomás Manso; Juan’s nephew, Pedro
Manso de Valdez; and Fray Juan González.
What made this gathering of Spaniards notable
was that all of them had been born in the small
Asturian town of Santa Eulalia de Luarca, a port
on the Bay of Biscay, and that out of this little
group of paisanos would come a bishop and a
governor who would later distinguish himself
as the epitome of a frontier entrepreneur.
Juan Manso began his career in New Spain
working with his sibling in the New Mexico
mission supply service, probably in 1652.
Wagon trains formed the lifeline between the
missions and the settlements of New Mexico
and the northern trade centers in New Spain.
Initially, agents acting for the viceroy
purchased supplies and turned them over to
the Franciscans for transport to New Mexico.
This system resulted in goods of irregular
quality and frequent interruptions in
shipments north. In 1631, to improve the
service, the Franciscans and the government
formalized a contractual arrangement whereby
the Franciscan procurator general purchased a
standard list of products to be shipped to New
Mexico, usually every three years.
Fours years after beginning work with the
mission supply wagons, Manso secured a
much loftier position. From 1656 to 1659 he
was governor of New Mexico, a period that is
poorly understood because of the dearth of
documentation available. After concluding his
term of office, Manso lived for a time in
Mexico City. In 1661, he departed the viceregal
capital with a commission from the Inquisition
to arrest his successor, Gov. Bernardo López de
Mendizabal (1659–61). Manso completed this
task in the spring of 1663 and relocated to
Parral in Nueva Viscaya. From that year until
his death in 1671, Manso served as
administrator of the New Mexico mission
supply wagons. At the same time he emerged
as an important figure in the northern
frontier’s commercial center of Parral. Manso
was appointed governor by Viceroy Francisco
Fernández de La Cueva. This information is
from an article by Rick Hendricks and Gerald
J. Mandell that appeared in the July 2000 issue
of the New Mexico Historical Review.
Bernardo López de Mendizabal, 1659–1661
Bernardo López de Mendizabal was born
about 1620 in the town of Chietla, to the east
of Cuernavaca, in New Spain (Mexico).
Initially intending to pursue a religious career,
López attended Jesuit college in Puebla but
finished his course of study at the nearly
century-old university in Mexico City. This
made him the best educated of New Mexico’s
governors during that era. With his education
complete, López filled government posts in
Nueva Granada, Cuba and New Spain,
gradually ascending the bureaucratic ladder.
While in Cartagena, he met and married
Teresa de Aguilar y Roche.
In 1658 López was appointed by Viceroy
Juan Leyva de la Cerda to succeed Juan Manso
de Contreras as New Mexico’s governor.
López and his wife accompanied the
Franciscan supply caravan from Mexico City
to Santa Fe late in 1658. Also in the caravan
was Fray Juan Ramírez, who had been serving
as procurador general, or chief overseer, of the
mission supply for the preceding two years.
López and Ramírez were quickly at each
other’s throats, and López voiced views that
seemed decidedly anti-Franciscan. The key
issues between the two concerned the limits of
civil and religious jurisdiction and the
deference each man owed the other.
As ammunition against the governor,
Franciscans began keeping records of the
habits of López and his wife that looked
suspiciously non-Christian.
Their reading and sleeping
habits, their infrequent
attendance at Mass and
their occasional bathing on
Fridays were all particularly
noted.
In December 1661, an
indictment of López on 33
counts of malfeasance
during his tenure was
© 2008 Santa Fe 400th Anniversary, Inc.
handed down. No sooner
SPONSORED BY
The 400thAnniversary
34 La Herencia / Spring 2009
Illustration
by Arturo
de Agüero
had López received that blow than his
predecessor in the governor’s office, Juan
Manso, returned to New Mexico, now bearing
the title of alguacil mayor, or chief constable, of
the Inquisition. He brought with him a
warrant for the arrest of both López and his
wife by the Inquisition. The various charges
brought against López by different factions
brought a premature end to his administration
when, in 1660, a new governor of the province
of New Mexico, Diego de Peñalosa Briceño y
Berdugo, was appointed.
Imprisoned by the Inquisition upon
reaching the viceregal capital, López was
already ill with an ailment that would kill him
in a year and a half. The trials of the couple
dragged on, as was not unusual. The hapless
ex-governor died in September 1664, still a
prisoner and accused of being a crypto-Jew.
He was buried in unconsecrated ground in a
corral near the prison. Three months later, his
wife’s trial was suspended and she was freed
from confinement. Teresa de Aguilar y Roche
pressed for exoneration of her husband, and
after seven years, in April 1671, the Holy
Office decided not to pursue its case against
him. As a result, his body was exhumed and
reburied at Santo Domingo Church, not far
from the zócalo, or city center, in Mexico City.
This information is from the Web site of New
Mexico’s state historian (nmstatehistorian.gov),
where several sources are cited and much more
information is available.
José García was born in
Rowe, N.M. He currently
lives in Santa Fe and has a
great interest in the colonial
history of northern New
Mexico.